See You On The Ice
by sdbubbles
Summary: Just a little extension to Tuesday night's episode, "See You On The Ice," at the end with Sahira and Hanssen and the chocolate. Hanssen knows he needed what Sahira gave him in theatre, and now is his chance to say thank you for it.


**A/N: This has been written since Tuesday night, after Holby City, but I haven't had the time to upload it until now. Ahhh, the craziness of life...**

**Sarah x**

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><p>"I really don't know what astounds me more," he said, his eyes giving a smirk for the first time in weeks. "What people classify as chocolate in this country, or that such an intelligent woman chooses to devour the quantities that you do."<p>

"Oh, come on. You only live once. Better walk on the wild side now and again." She heard him chuckle and smiled inwardly much more than she allowed to show. She enjoyed seeing him seem more content, but she did sometimes wonder whether it was just as much of a façade and guard as his sarcasm and unpleasantness.

"You did well today, in theatre. I..." he hesitated. She gave him a strange look, as if she was telling him to say what he was thinking. He never did, though, unless told to.

She swallowed her chocolate and told him, "Spit it out, Henrik, before it gags you," with a grin. "Sure you don't want a piece? You look like you could use it," she commented cheekily.

He reluctantly took the piece she handed him. They went to lean against the wall outside. It was cold, but it wasn't uncomfortable. "I needed that, what you did before we went into theatre," he admitted. "If you hadn't done that, I'd probably still be sitting in that office, alone, with only my files, my laptop and that little-" he cut himself off before he could say what his obsession with cutting tiny pieces of bread over recent weeks actually meant.

"Little what?" she asked him with a gentle smile. She heard him give a sigh as he tried to find a way to explain it that would not end with her laughing at his childishness.

"It was a juvenile thing to do, I know," he began. "But a few weeks ago, this little bird flew into my office window. I thought it was dead, but when I looked a few hours later, it was trying to move. I've been keeping it in my office and nursing it back to health," he explained. Sahira merely smiled at him. Whether he knew it or not, it was such a typical thing of Hanssen to do. He may appear to everyone as completely ruthless, but after sixteen years of knowing him, Sahira realised that he really was very gentle. And, if he would drop the front, vulnerable.

"That is so like you," she said. She looked up at him, seeing that he really was grateful for the backbone she so suddenly grew in theatre. "Do you know what Greg said earlier?"

"Go on. Amuse me." Knowing Greg Douglas, it was probably a fairly entertaining way of putting what happened between Henrik and Sahira. He probably found it amusing when he had heard that she had reversed the roles, that she had been his motivation for a change.

"He heard that I said "see you on the ice" to you," she began. "He said, "What I wouldn't have given to see the Swede get a taste of his own medicine." I had to stop myself laughing. They all have a very strange misconception of you." Henrik cracked a smile and looked down on Sahira. He could honestly believed that Greg had said that.

"Not really," he replied. "It's my fault. I'm the one who behaves the way I do, and that behaviour makes them all very wary of me. It's the way I want it," he confessed to her. She shook her head to herself. That was something she never would understand about him. He had always, for as long as she had known him, pushed everyone away from him. What she also found, though, was that he was much more penetrable when he was with her. She found it easier to get under his skin, to make him see sense, to make him show _some_ emotion, however little it was.

"Why do you do that?" she asked him cautiously. She didn't want to startle him, to force his barriers up again. She had had enough of that by now. She wanted nothing more than to see him open up a little, just enough to make himself heard. He was not like those around him; if he was hurting, he let nothing show. Most people started crying, or went in a rage, or were snappy with others, but not him.

"People can't hurt me if they never get close enough to try," he reasoned. "You're the only person that's managed to get to know me, really. Most give up on me after a few weeks," he joked. "Probably because I'm not worth the bother," he added more solemnly.

She nudged his arm so that he looked around at her. "Don't you dare let me hear that come out of your mouth again," she said sternly. She laughed at the expression on his face. She smacked his chest lightly and said, "I'd better get home before the kids tear the house apart." She looked up at him again, and she was pleased to see his face a bit more optimistic, if he ever was such a thing. "Goodnight," she added.

"Goodnight. Thanks for...for everything," he finally replied after a few seconds' pause. She smiled and shook her head as she walked backwards from him, still facing him.

"No problem!" she called back. She knew that, now that she had stood up to him and knocked sense into him once, she would be able to do it more easily the next time he needed his backside kicked into gear. And there _would_ be a next time, because nobody, not even the seemingly cold, hard Henrik Hanssen, is invincible.

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><p><strong>Hope it was OK!<strong>

**Please review!**

**Sarah x**


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